


Close Your Eyes

by mortalitasi



Series: ad lucem [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, General, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 07:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3759217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortalitasi/pseuds/mortalitasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris never gets sick. Except for that one time when he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> got some more prompts on tumblr, gonna start transferring them today! this one's one of my favorites :)

It’d started off as just a tickle in the throat, a sniffle here, a sneeze there. He hardly recalls the last time he was ill - not like this, anyway. 

It’s always a passing thing, nothing more than a bother. One of the magisters had hypothesized that the markings kept him immune from most common ailments, helped him with regeneration, and maybe that is true, though it certainly doesn’t feel like they’re doing anything to help right at this moment. He huddles beneath the blankets that had  _mysteriously_  appeared on his doorstep a day earlier, trying to hide from what little light is making its way into the disheveled sitting room he usually calls his chambers. 

He’s too tired to even protest when Hawke pulls up one of the stools strewn around the room and sits on it. He hasn’t had someone at his bedside since… since… there  _should_  be something there, a  _memory_ , some sort of identifier, a landmark experience, but all that greets him is emptiness. It frustrates him on the best of days, and now? Now it infuriates him. He  _should_  remember. These are - were -  _his_  memories, his life, his… he can’t even say what it was that was his. How pitiful. 

“You don’t have to be here,” he croaks, and Aisling stops rifling through her rucksack to gaze at him. 

Perhaps it’s the malaise affecting his perception, but today she looks - more like herself than usual. Wisps of her dark hair have freed themselves from the confines of her low ponytail, catching on the thick brush of her lashes. She blinks them away, brushing them aside with the back of one wrist, and a bit of a smile tweaks at her lips. 

“True,” she agrees. “But I  _want_  to be, which is why I am. Besides - you wouldn’t go down to the clinic, would you?”

The answering glare she gets is all the reply she needs. She tilts her head knowingly at him, and then pulls a handkerchief out of her rucksack. It’s white, embroidered sloppily with red, and in the center are the childishly-stitched initials  _A.H._  He realizes he’s staring when Hawke looks at it too, then unfolds it for him to see better. 

“Beth gave this to me when we were younger,” she says, voice uncharacteristically soft. A knot of heat gathers in his throat, but it doesn’t have to do with the sickness.

He watches as she dips the handkerchief in the little bowl of water she’d poured a few minutes earlier and set on the rickety nightstand. She tests the water with one finger, makes a disapproving face, and then reaches out with a careful hand. He doesn’t have to look to recognize the familiar hum of gathering magic. A halo of shimmering white appears around her palm, shining bright for an instant before fading away. It should unsettle him, to witness her working magic with him so close, but it has been years since he met her, and he is tired, and right now, he trusts her. He never stopped. Does she know that?

“It was lukewarm. Wouldn’t help with the fever much that way,” she explains as she strains the water from the handkerchief, and then stops herself halfway through lifting it from the bowl. She blinks at him, slowly, pale eyes watching him diligently. “May I?” 

She always asks. And that is why he lets her. Fenris inclines his head, a quiet yes, and she leans over, slipping the handkerchief over his burning forehead. He can’t hold in the sigh of relief that escapes at the feeling of the coolness against his skin.

“Better?” she asks, still so oddly gentle. He makes an affirming sound. “Try to sleep.” 

 _I’ll be here_ , is what she’s actually saying. It frightens him that he knows that without having to inquire.

It goes on like that for the next twenty minutes. He lies back in silence, eyes sliding shut, and she makes herself as comfortable as she can be on the bench, taking a book from her rucksack and occupying herself with that. She came here with plans to stay. It makes an emotion he’s too exhausted to be honest about swell inside him. She occasionally soaks the handkerchief again, with cautious, confident touches, and he may anticipate the brush of her fingers against his temple more than he should when he hears her approach.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed when at last he feels the niggling fire of the fever recede, just somewhat, and sleep begins to finally call to him. She’s retying the band that keeps her hair up when he speaks. He blames feeling like death warmed over for the looseness of his tongue.

“I wish I could hate you.”

Aisling startles - maybe she thought he was already dozing off. She doesn’t reply, not at first, not until he’s turned on his side and the handkerchief has slipped to his pillow, and he’s breathing as evenly as he can through the stuffiness in his nose. She sighs, repeats the motions she’s been going through since the morning - bowl, wring the water out, wipe his hair back, place the handkerchief on his brow. She lingers, looking at him, her heart so very heavy.

“I don’t.”


End file.
